WRiTE CLUB 2015 - Playoff Round Bout #3

WRiTE CLUB is a writing
community sensation sponsored by the DFWWriters Conferencethat is loosely based on the popular movie Fight Club.There are numerous versions of this concept
floating around the internet, but nothing like we do it here.This unique approach embodies simple,
good-natured competition, with lots and lots of fun sprinkled on top.

We've
narrowed the field down to ten and we're continuing on with the play-off rounds
– which will continue to come at a rapid fire pace, Mon-Fri.The
voting for all five bouts will remain open until noon on Sunday, July 5th.Your task remains simple…read the
submission from each WRiTER carefully and leave your vote for the sample that
resonates with you the most.If you
haven’t already done so in the previous rounds, offer some critique if you have
time.Anyone reading this can vote, so
blog/tweet/facebook/text/smoke signal everyone you know and get them to take
part in the fun.Vote on as many bouts
as you can get around to.Whether that
is one bout, or all five, how much you participate is up to you.

Here’s
something else to keep in mind for this round...every vote counts. That’s
because the contestant who doesn't win their bout…but garners the most votes
amongst all of the other losers…will become a wildcard winner and still advance
to the quarterfinals.

The
winners will be posted on the WRiTE CLUB Scoreboard late in the afternoon on July 5th and then the
quarterfinals will kick off the following Monday, July 6th, again with all
new 500 word submissions from the six advancing contestants.

Good
luck to all of the WRiTER’s!

And
now…..

In
this corner, weighing in at 500 words and representing the magical realism genre, welcome.....Quill Thrill

They’re
lots of pros to being half-elf, but when no other elf is willing to lend humans
their Senses, it results in me getting dragged to shitty places like Mr
Akiyama’s Sushi bar.

Minh
offered me some tissues.

“I’m
good, it’s not snot. You got painkillers?”

“Sorry,”
he said, his smile fast and fake.

“I’m
actually thinking of clipping my ears and going on the run,” I said.

“Interesting,
but don’t bother. We’d still find you…”

I
ignored the urge to present my middle finger and shadowed Minh over to a
corridor. An officer handed him an evidence bag and on reaching Mr Akiyama’s
office, my head pulsed and my sinuses ached with pressure. “Something big is
here,” I said. “This place is dripping with energy.”

“As
long as it’s dripping with more than teriyaki sauce,” said Minh. “We got this
warrant based on your claims so you better be on point today. No half-human
bullshit excuses, got it?”

“Hey,
I had other plans, I – ”

“Ex-druggie
drop-outs don’t have plans. We’re your
only plan.”

I
rubbed the bridge of my nose and bit back the verbal assault itching to get
past my lips.

“Now
listen, so far Mr Akiyama has admitted he’s not Akiyama. He’s actually a
Chinese guy called Hai who lived a short while in Japan. The officers also
found this…” Minh held up the evidence bag and the white sand inside gave an
iridescent sparkle. “No flour or paracetamol in there; it’s one hundred percent
ground Alicorn.”

I took
the bag and opened it, sniffing.

Minh
snatched it back. “Are you deaf? That’s unicorn horn.”

“And?
You scared I’ll start reading your thoughts?”

He
snorted. “It doesn’t give you telepathy, you idiot. It gives you
schizophrenia.”

Maybe
for humans…

He
went for the door. “Now get your mean face on.”

I
followed but I wasn’t there to play good-cop-bad-cop. I was there because I had
no choice...and because yeah, it paid well.

Minh threw
the bag on the manager’s desk. “What else are you hiding, Hai?”

Hai
crossed his arms. “Why you do this? You scare abou’ the elf council saying ‘no
more magic’?”

“Which
could happen if we find you’ve been putting mermaid flesh in your sushi. So if
you’re involved in – ”

“We
all involve,” Hai yelled. “Elf too. They not want us to have magic from long
time ago. Where you think nymph and dragon go? We not kill them. Elf people
kill them and say we kill them so they can say ‘no more magic’.”

I
laughed.

“You
think I lie?!”

“Elves
are hard-core eco warriors,” I said.

Hai
stood and gave his desk a hefty push, revealing a small hatch.

My
head pounded with the sensation of Death rising from the cellar door.

“Come,” said Hai. “One alive. I cut off fin
but mermaid still talking. You can ask who catch her for me…then you see who
really involve.”

I swallowed hard. What exactly were the pros
to being half-elf anyway?

And
in the other corner, representing the women's fiction genre with 499 words let me
introduce to you………. Cloudwatcher

Finally, her heart stopped beating. Her
brain hung on a bit longer. It sparked. It searched. It sent commands the rest
of her could not obey. Finally it stopped, too. The particular atoms of bones, fluids
and tissues that had been her would have to become something else. She climbed
out of her aged walls and, ever so briefly, thanked the body on the bed.

“Ahmi!” she sang across the universe as
she swung into his arms.

They swirled among stars. The glorious
jewels were hers to string together or scatter as she pleased. They glided over
transparent oceans. She understood the majesty of the whales and coral, the
sharks and seaweed. Ahmi handed her color. It shot from her fingertips. She
spun music out of it. Music so beautiful, the two of them merged into the highs
that towered over space and time, and the lows that embraced the smallest
particle of life. She snuggled in his arms. Ahmi. How she loved him.

He’d been with her all the time, of
course. They were closest when she was an infant. Back then they still talked.
They talked about how much she liked the woman holding her and the man looking
in her eyes. He laughed at her efforts to walk flat-footed across a room and
later to master jump rope in the school yard. He shared her joy when they
placed the rhinestone crown on her head at prom. She’d recognized him when she
kissed Jake, and called to him in the pain of childbirth.

He’d been with her too, when she did not
remember him. His arms were around her shuddering shoulders as they buried the
drowned four-year-old. He watched as she and Jake drank together to relieve
their shared anguish, then as they drank together to stay within striking
distance and, finally, as they drank apart to forget how much the other
suffered. He moved her hand a centimeter as her car clipped the school bus. He
sat next to her in the jail cell as the bourbon bubbled in her stomach. But when
she drove into the vacant storefront, he did not interfere with her third
arrest.

He’d whispered “Listen,” at the AA
meeting in the women’s prison, and “Stay,” when she started to bolt from her first
on the outside. He helped if she asked while she fought the bottle. When she
met Jake at the park to make her amends, he stopped the rain. He smiled as they
found their way back to each other and smiled at their children’s births. He
whispered “Listen,” to the women she brought AA meetings to in prison, and
“Stay,” at their first with her on the outside.

Then he waited. Waited while she slept
and woke, worked and watched TV, bathed grandchildren and saw the Eiffel Tower.
And he waited while the cancer cell grew from a pinprick to a baseball-sized
mass.

Enjoying
two talented writers at work is only part of the price of admission, now it’s
up to you to decide who moves forward.In the comments below leave your vote for the winner.Which one tickled your fancy?After you vote please tell all of your
friends to stop by and make a selection as well.Yes, it’s subjective, but so is the entire
publishing world.It’s as much about the
readers as it is about the writers.

Not really sure about today. I will give my vote to Quill Thrill just because there is somewhere left for the story to go, questions left unanswered that I want to know.Quill Thrill had its issues, but I would keep reading this story just to see where it went. Cloudwatcher's was another one of those surreal, out-of-body things that seem to be in every YA book these days (even though this obviously isn't YA. I am merely making an observation). And the ending- was she holding herself all along? Was "he" actually "she," and her conscience? Was he a guardian angel? Not really my thing; I tend to skip parts of books like this. That being said, it was well-written.

Like Rosie above, I was confused by the "woman holding her" at the end of Cloudwatcher's piece. Was "he" actually "she," or was this supposed to be a reunion with her mother. I didn't get it. That said, Cloudwatcher's piece was beautifully written, and I enjoyed reading it.

I found Quill Thrill's was too dialogue heavy, so I didn't feel grounded while reading it. I would have liked a little bit more description/etc so I could 'see' what was going on and where they were, not just 'hear' what was going on.

One vote for Quill Thrill in spite of the off-putting Asian dialect and lack of description. There's an interesting premise, fleshed out characters and a lot happening in 500 words. Felt longer, which for me means every phrase was put to good use. Cloudwatcher's piece is artful and poetic, but has a tired premise and lacks meaty content. Beautiful writing, absolutely, but for me, story wins over style every time.

Didn't care for either in this round. Quill Thrill's didn't have any meat to draw you in and have you yearn for more. It seems the writer was more interested in imagining unique delicatessens and drugs. Cloudwatcher's story was more of a poetic sendoff than a story I would want to read. The second to last paragraph about bathing infants and cancer growth didn't blend. However, it was at least well written. Slight edge: Cloudwatcher.

Neither appeal to me as a reader. Quill Thrill misused the word "They're" right off and that set me against it immediately. It was overloaded with information that did not anchor me to the characters; but still I was not sure what gender the perspective character was, despite the feminim voice. A very choppy start, but it did at least have some basic world building and characterization.

Cloudwatcher's piece was all over the place. Not sure if this is a story start, or flash, or what. I am too confused.